You drink the tap water in your home every day, but is it safe? All water contains some minerals and contaminants, but water is only safe to drink within certain established levels.
What to Know About Drinking Water
When you consider the safety of drinking water, tap and bottled water are comparable. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) manages the standards for drinking water to ensure that it meets safety standards. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does the same thing for tap water.
The EPA provides consumers with information about water in their geographic area, including:
- Water source
- Contaminant levels
- Potential health risks
Keep in mind that if you rely on well water, the EPA doesn’t oversee your water quality. Instead, you should conduct your own water quality tests at least once a year to ensure contaminants are within safe limits.
Hard Water vs. Soft Water
In addition to contaminants, your water also contains minerals. Neither water type is better for you, but hard water that contains high mineral levels may pose some health risks. You may have a preference based on how hard and soft water tastes to you.
Sources estimate that 85% of water sources in the U.S. are hard. Because there are some stigmas around hard water, many people install water softeners to reduce the mineral content of tap water.
You can tell if your water is hard or soft by measuring the calcium and magnesium content:
- Water is soft if it has 17 parts calcium and magnesium per million or less
- Water is slightly hard if it has 17 to 60 parts per million
- Water is moderately hard if it has 60 to 120 parts per million
- Water is hard if it has 120 to 180 parts per million
- Water is very hard if it has more than 180 parts per million
Your body needs minerals like calcium and magnesium to stay healthy, but too much of a good thing can be dangerous. Some studies show links between hard water and an increased risk of some health conditions like cardiovascular disease.
Contaminants in Your Tap Water
Just because your water is hard does not mean it’s contaminated.
The EPA classifies contaminants as:
Physical – particles you can see in the water, like soil from a river or lake
Chemical – pesticides, metals, toxins, and drugs
Biological – bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other living organisms
Radiological – similar to chemicals, these elements are unbalanced based on the number of protons and neutrons they have.
U.S. water systems that serve 100,000 or more households are required to provide annual online water quality reports. You can visit the EPA website to access the report for your water system. When you find the report, find the summary section that identifies any contaminant levels that are higher than acceptable cutoffs.
You can read about health risks associated with each contaminant. Your water service provider should have a plan in place for addressing any contaminants that fall outside of the acceptable range. They should also list suggestions for things you can do on your own to address the contaminants in your tap water. If you have questions about the report or your tap water quality, contact your water supplier or call the EPA directly.
Tap Water Filters
If you aren’t comfortable with the level of contaminants in your tap water, invest in a water filter. Reverse osmosis filters are the most effective because they remove a wide variety of contaminants, but they can cost $1,000 or more. They’re also very large and may take up a lot of room under your sink or require your plumbing to be reworked.
A carbon filter may improve the taste of your water, but it won’t remove all of the lead.
If you want to remove the heavy mental from the water, you could choose us the TANKLESS Reverse Osmosis Water systems, which adopts composite pre-filter and RO membrane with highest filtration precision at 0.0001 microns, under sink reverse osmosis water filtration system induces a deep 5-stage filtration mechanism that can eliminate more than 1000+ kinds of harmful contaminants (99.99%) from water including LEAD, CHLORINE, FLUORIDE, Heavy metals, Chloramine, VOCs, TDS, Limescale, Arsenic and Asbestos and more. A TDS meter is also included in the package. You know your water!
